The Coalblog has been providing balancing information on energy, policy, and the environment since 2004. Jason Hayes is the Associate Director of the American Coal Council and Editor-in-Chief of American Coalmagazine.

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Category Archives for Marketplace Information

The American Coal Council welcomes Fredrick (Fred) Palmer as our special guest speaker at the upcoming Coal Market Strategies conference August 10-12, 2015 in Park City, Utah.

Mr. Palmer has been involved with Peabody Energy since 2001, serving for many years as Peabody’s Senior Vice President of Government Relations and most recently as Special Advisor to the Office of the Executive Chairman. As of July 2015, he serves Peabody in a consulting role. Mr. Palmer is a member of the National Coal Council, Executive Committee, and Chairman, Coal Policy Committee.

While coal has lost market share in the U.S. due to a mix of low gas prices and extreme, anti-coal regulation, Rob Nikolewski’s recent Watchdog.org article shows how coal use is growing rapidly around the world.

“Coal remained the fastest-growing fossil fuel in 2013 in both absolute and relative terms, accounting for approximately 30 percent of global primary energy consumption, second only to oil,” said an IEA report on coal markets, released in December.

Another IEA report, published in May, tracking the progress of clean energy showed low-priced coal was the fastest-growing fossil fuel in 2013 and that coal production worldwide outpaced the growth of oil and gas in 2012.

A few months back, I received a copy of Dr. Roger Bezdek‘s presentation titled, “The Social Cost of Carbon: The Actual, Real-World Impact of Obama’s Stealth Energy Tax.” The numbers and facts that Dr. Bezdek presents, are an eye-opener and well worth reviewing.

The SCC is an “artificial construct” designed to penalize fossil fuels

Allows the “Administration to achieve via regulation what it cannot via Congress” – (remember the President’s “there are other ways to skin a cat” comment when Congress declined to pass the ‘cap and trade’ bill.)

Source: “Mike Pence, official portrait, 112th Congress” by United States Congress – Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

The National Journal is reporting that Gov. Mike Pence, Indiana has sent a letter to the White House openly rejecting the EPA’s “ill-conceived and poorly constructed” Clean Power Plan. Without “demonstrable” and “significant” improvements in the proposed regulation, Pence says his state “will not comply” with the rule.

Gov. Pence also goes on to note that Indiana will use any means available to block the rule’s implementation and criticizes the rule as damaging to Indiana’s economy. Pence notes that the CPP will impact system reliability, force the state to fundamentally restructure its generation system, and that it oversteps the agency’s legal and Constitutional boundaries.

The short version of the article’s primary argument is that most people won’t have the space or finances to power a home solely on solar panels and Tesla’s batteries. It is much easier and far less expensive to use the existing transmission and utility network to act as the battery.

A recent report by Management Information Services takes a look at the massive, statewide impacts of TVA’s planned closure of almost 3,900 MW of coal-fueled generation and expectations for further closures in the near future. The broad, widespread economic and social impacts on Tennessee’s people, their economy, industry, and productivity are frightening.

A short read of the report’s findings are that, as TVA drops coal from its generation fleet, the people of Tennessee will pay dearly.

Here is another article that looks at the true costs of generating electricity from wind. As I have noted in many previous Coalblog posts, we consistently hear how wind generation hasachieved “costparity” with fossil fuels. However, a closer look at the actual costs involved reveal a much different story, with wind power coming in at an estimated $149 / MWh.

Over the past 35 years, wind energy – which supplied just 4.4% of US electricity in 2014 – has received US$30 billion in federal subsidies and grants. These subsidies shield people from the uncomfortable truth of just how much wind power actually costs and transfer money from average taxpayers to wealthy wind farm owners, many of which are units of foreign companies. …

Editor’s note: This guest editorial, prepared by Dennis Drebsky with Nixon Peabody, LLP, takes a decidedly different look at coal use forecasts. While many energy experts are predicting declines in coal use, Drebsky argues that the sheer size of the Chinese energy market, along with the affordability and reliability of coal, and the Chinese focus on economic development entails a long-term Chinese reliance on coal-based energy.

By: Dennis Drebsky, Partner, Nixon Peabody, LLP

China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal. However, there have been repeated predictions that China’s use of coal will substantially decline during the next decade due to environmental concerns. That China should be a prime target of these concerns should be no surprise since China produces and consumes almost as much coal as the rest of the world combined. A recent survey found that China accounts for 46 percent of the world’s coal production and 49 percent of consumption.[1] To put this in context, China produces nearly four times as much coal as the second largest producer, the United States. Coal accounts for approximately 70 percent of Chinese energy consumption and this use has held steady, if not increased, during the last 30 years.[2]

Despite repeated assurances that the U.S. wind industry is “vibrant” and competitive, Tom Kiernan flatly admits that without further extensions of decades worth of government subsidies, the wind industry still could not compete. In fact the industry would (in his words) “fall off a cliff” if the PTC were discontinued.